What Was She Wearing?

Brought to you by Paul Thistoll.

The fun never stops!

When we posted a few days ago, we said that our submission had been withheld from public view without a reason, and that therefore we would read it on on Paul Brennan’s RCR Breakfast show on Monday morning. (Tomorrow - tune in!)

Then we found out via Twitter (thanks to @kiriceilidh) that there had been a complaint laid against us with the Speaker of the House (Hon Gerry Brownlee) - so we sent an OIA to find out the details - but helpfully, the complainant then posted his letter in full on his own X account, with pictures.

Here he is, complaining. (Our Response Follows)

So there you have it - and here’s our response:

To: The Speaker of the House, Rt Hon. Gerry Brownlee.

From: Mana Wāhine Kōrero, National & International Rōpū of Tangata Whenua Wāhine & Whanaunga

28th September, 2024

Dear Speaker Rt Hon. Brownlee,

A short while ago on the 12th of September, two of our Rōpū members presented to the Petitions Select Committee on the Midwifery Council Revised Scope of Practice, accompanied by another member who came in support. 

It has been since brought to our attention that a complaint has been laid against us with the Speaker of the House, from one Mr Paul Thistoll, who was not present on the day. 

He writes that:

• We deliberately wore our group t-shirts to be threatening and intimidating within the Parliamentary Precinct

• We are white supremacists and Nazis

• Our group logo is comparable to gang insignia 

• That our t-shirts are not permitted in public service buildings and we have been asked to leave and denied entry for wearing them

• Our t-shirts are so offensive that nobody will print them

• He is also trying to undermine our submission, ingratiatingly assuring the Speaker that he doesn't mind if our co-founder, Dianne Landy, says that women are adult human females in her own submission, “...even though it’s nonsensical”. 

These are all outrageous and wholly unsubstantiated claims, which he has posted on social media in full, publicly denigrating our Rōpū and our members. 

Mr Thistoll has also attempted to damage the reputation of a Member of Parliament; MP for New Zealand First Tanya Unkovich, who was present at the submissions and kindly took a photograph with us and Petitioner Deb Hayes before our members left. 

It is a picture of four women smiling in the lobby, after a significant submission we worked hard to make. 

One of our members (our co-founder) is using a cane for support, and the other is pictured beaming and ‘flipping the bird’ in a humorous camera pose. Nothing about this image is remotely threatening, especially to a man who wasn't there. 

We’re proud to thank MP Tanya Unkovich for posting this photo on her own media, with the caption “We will continue to listen to all New Zealanders”. 

We believe this is the attitude all Members should hold, and in our opinion Ms. Unkovich is currently one of the most dedicated MPs in the 54th Parliament; one who has taken her oath seriously and been singularly willing to listen to her constituents and represent their concerns. We know we are not alone in feeling grateful for her rare integrity in performing her public service role. 

Mr Thistoll, by contrast, is a well-known trans-rights zealot who believes his own children have been born in the wrong bodies and attacks any woman who suggests otherwise, even when not directed at him personally, as is the case here. 

He has, as is typical, attempted to make hay out of nothing with his insulting and vexatious complaint. 

As far as our t-shirts are concerned, this is an all-new take on the tired excuse for abusing women: “But what was she wearing?”.  

He is implying that we have brought his ravings about ‘hate’ down upon ourselves with our t-shirts; that we deserve to be silenced, like rape victims who are blamed by their rapists for being too beautiful in their clothes. 

We are outraged that he has compared our logo to wearing a gang patch to Parliament. 

He has the gall to speak of ‘dog whistling’ in the same breath as conjuring up images of violent gangs to silence Māori wāhine with. 

Of course we wear our name and logo, especially when we are making representations on important topics that we advocate for. 

Our branded t-shirts are simple, using a tasteful hue-gourd design which is significant to Maori Wāhine history. They state the dictionary definition of a woman, which has already been ruled on as not hateful in New Zealand law.

(See Whitmore V Palmerston City Council, in which the presiding judge ruled that ‘Adult Human Female’ could not rationally be described as hate speech) . 

Mr Thistoll plucks out the slur ‘Nazi’ on our supporting member’s t-shirt, which displayed over fifty slurs that women are called by men just like him, when we say that biology is real - including ‘Nazi’. 

It is a silent protest against being called Nazis; an essential distinction which evidently escaped him as he fired off emails calling us exactly that. 

As our member’s t-shirt and Mr Thistoll’s subsequent behaviour makes clear, his insinuations that we are white supremacists and Nazis is a typical tactic used to impugn and discredit women’s rights groups. 

We have had to defend ourselves against this more than once, both here and overseas. 

We remind the Speaker that these kinds of accusations against women can and have led to very serious scenes of violence in New Zealand, inflaming the public beyond reason into a mob mentality. 

Mr Thistoll references Kellie-Jay Keen, whom the Speaker may remember was invited to New Zealand to speak in 2023. She is also not a Nazi. 

Mana Wāhine Kōrero was part of the organising team who invited her, and for ten days leading up to the event, we and all the women who wanted to attend were accused again and again of transphobia, hatred and Nazism, until the public believed it, attacking 150 women in a mob of thousands. 

Several people are still living with the consequences; one elderly man who came to support women speaking was punched so hard his teeth were knocked out, affecting him for the remainder of his life. 

Journalist Rachel Smalley interviewed us days before the fateful event, during which we categorically denounced Nazi and white supremacist creeds, and we still do. 

The accusation that our Rōpū - currently the only politically active gender-critical native women's group in the world - supports white supremacy makes us angry. 

Our whole lives and our own incomes are spent trying to defend what remains of our culture and language from Western academic theories, DEI programmes and people like Mr. Thistoll - an Englishman who believes wāhine Māori are not real - and he adds insult to injury by beginning his libelous letter about us with OUR language. 

Mr. Thistoll also seems to have mistaken his own personal wishlist for facts. 

He may personally long for us to be denied entry to public service buildings, removed from venues and banned for wearing our Mana Wāhine Kōrero t-shirts, but this has never actually happened. 

It is entirely Mr. Thistoll’s fantasy claim, as is his strange assertion that nobody will print our t-shirts. Currently, we use four separate printers among our members, none of whom have any issue with our logo or branding. 

Finally, as regards Mr. Thistoll's comments about biology and who is and isn't a woman, we consider this a blatant attempt on his part to bypass the Select Committee process and interfere with the Petitions Committee deliberations by sharing his own views on the matter with the Speaker. 

Mr. Thistoll was entitled to make his own submissions on the Midwifery Council Scope of Practice - but he chose not to, preferring instead to attack those who did take the time to engage in the proper process after the fact, based on a photo he saw on Twitter. 

For us, that time and effort equates to two years of work, writing, researching, speaking and submitting on a matter of profound importance to our group. 

On the day, we were courteous, timely, prepared, appropriately dressed and made sincere efforts to comply with Select Committee processes. 

We were happy to clarify that we were asking questions as opposed to making accusations during our submission, and we also note that at the end of our speaking time, MP Greg Fleming thanked our co-founder in Te Reo for her strong and well-spoken submission. 

Certainly, he did not feel that we had been intimidating and threatening and no member of the committee or anybody else mentioned our clothes. 

To conclude, Mr. Thistoll's complaint is a spurious one, made not out of any genuine fear for his safety or others, but to try and damage our submission and our group for his own personal reasons. 

We trust that the Speaker will ensure that none of Mr. Thistoll's comments on the subject of biology, our clothing, or photographs we were featured in after the hearing will be considered relevant to our submission, and that the Petitions Committee will be advised that they cannot include any of his complaint in their deliberations on our evidence. 

We look forward to hearing from you, 

Faithfully, 

Mana Wāhine Kōrero. 

We will keep you all informed of what happens.

We don’t think this is why our oral submission has been withheld as Paul Thistoll didn’t make his complaint until two weeks after the hearing date. However, we’re not taking any chances.

No matter what we wear, we are still Adult Human Females, and we are still entitled to speak in our own Parliament.

#Never Surrender!

Noho Tūturu, Noho Tangata!